


We Are Predators

by sloppy



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Crossover, Minor Injuries, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 02:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8039515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sloppy/pseuds/sloppy
Summary: Six new recruits stir up Palmetto in more ways than one.





	We Are Predators

**Author's Note:**

> How many edits does it take to get to the center of a final draft? A lot.

The Breckinridge Jackal fans, in a swarm of black and tan, dotted the stands of the familiar blinding orange. Their screams resounded even within the safety of the foyer, but no one on the team rattled. Holding the first game of the season at home court duly wrung out the remaining slivers of hesitation on the Foxes’ morale, and last year’s seven-to-nine defeat meant nothing to discern how well they planned on doing that night. 

Neil and Andrew’s group sat in the corner, assembling their uniforms and muttering in their private languages, while the upperclassmen weren’t shy about their chatter and bet unabashedly in the potential on the Jackal’s player roster. 

David minded the freshmen.

The munchkin was restlessly re-stringing her deep-netted dealer racquet despite being last minute, looking rightfully nervous before her first ever official college Exy game. Sargent’s clatter of hair clips, in spirit of the day, were all frighteningly fox orange. 

Her files had boasted her speed and agility, but she was as fresh a face to Exy as Neil Josten claimed to be his first year. Experience was the master teacher, and David wasn’t sure she had the chance to be its disciple back in her hometown in the Middle of Nowhere, Virginia. Sargent was a spitfire with courtesy—a terrible, sensible little thing, and of course ended up David’s secret favorite.  


Beside her, Cheng worked his big mouth about anything and everything to ease his own nerves, and the girl egged him on by nodding her head absentmindedly. He was good at heart; a bit yearning, a bit longing. David didn’t have to bend over backwards to accommodate the kid, but there were only so many times he could intercept the others from beating his behind for an offhanded comment that he might feel more comforted if he permanently stapled his yap shut. 

The Foxes’ backliners, at least, could handle a boy like Henry Cheng just fine. Despite being as Henry Cheng as he could be, he still was one of the most approachable freshmen in the group.

Czerny was their capable offensive dealer when Dan needed a sub, but for tonight’s game he was content with being benched indefinitely. The brightness of the uniform emphasized his pale skin and the deep, darkened scar on his cheekbone displayed itself unashamedly. 

The quiet one, smudgy and silly, Czerny hovered among the freshmen like a ghost and David lost track of him more than once. It was easy to underestimate him. Yet watching the tapes months ago in his apartment, ankle-deep in empty beer cans with the monitor emitting a sick bluish light in the night, David had likened Noah Czerny playing offense to a man possessed. He struggled correlating that initial impression with the murky boy silently patting Sargent’s hair fluff before him.  


Neil’s choice was Parrish, whose coach, fittingly, had sent in his application for him. He was a striker, he was talented, and he was also the hardest to recruit. Harvard was what he wanted, Exy was what he got. 

If he were Neil a year ago, David would have enticed him with a chance for permanence. Since he was not Neil, but a sad, hardened boy named Adam Parrish, David lured him with a way out of his tiny trailer and away from his heavy-handed father. He offered him progress. Parrish rode the fine line between difficult and cooperative, though he was reigned in by that Gansey boy without too much struggle. 

Speaking of the congresswoman’s son, the golden boy was currently poring over the Jackal’s roster in serious study, strategizing and throwing hypothetical plays at Parrish and Lynch, who lapped up his attention wholeheartedly, whether they were aware of it or not. 

David was caught unawares the day Richard Gansey III called on his private line to ask to be considered for a position on the team. After leading his preppy little Aglionby Ravens to finals, his successful high school senior year as Exy captain and goalkeeper would have guaranteed scouts from Class I teams all over the nation, but instead he pulled a Kevin Day and settled for the underdogs, the promising wily foxes—the redeemed champions. 

Gansey was a wild card. The monsters ignored him, the upperclassmen were wary of him, and the freshmen unwaveringly trailed after him like he were their king and they, his subjects.

Along with the king came his loyal right hand, a sharp and dark Ronan Lynch whose shadow wilted the very flowers Gansey left in his holy wake. Lynch’s occasional grins were sharper than any of Andrew’s knives, and it was by the grace of God the two had never thought to exchange more than a word to each other since day one. David hoped that’d be a bridge never crossed for his team’s sake. 

Lynch was a backliner in Aglionby, a last defense before Gansey’s goal, then switched to striker when he came to Palmetto in August for reasons unexplained. As a natural all-rounder, Lynch could fill any holes that opened, but whether he’d prove a team player was the more pressing question. David already had enough stubborn brats on his team. He didn’t need any more.  


With their team nearly double in size, they fell back into the safety of numbers—a luxury that David had forgotten and regretted not indulging in the year prior. 

Most of the freshmen were scheduled to take over their respective roles during the second half of the game to relieve the older players and pave an image for the public on their own. Everyone was enthralled with the championship team, their destruction of last year’s Edgar Allen fresh in memory, and more so with the new recruits meant to carry the weight of the victory.

Gansey’s honeyed syllables rose at a point when everyone’s fell to a natural hush. “The team lost last year because the defense and offense lines were out of synchronicity. It didn’t help that the Breckenridge offense happened to be stronger.”

“Not stronger— _dirtier_ ,” Allison interrupted, having enough of the one-way tactical conversation. She was tying up her hair in a tight ponytail. “They have a gorilla.”

“You don’t think he’s graduated by now?” asked Dan, incredulous.  


Matt didn’t have to think twice to answer. “Probably held back for the next ten years.”  


The upperclassmen’s sudden intrusions left Gansey and the others nonplussed. David let them stir their own pots for the moment and pretended to examine papers on his clipboard. Abby was unpacking her medical kits out in the inner court sidelines so he had nothing to distract himself. 

“There’s a gorilla on this team?” Cheng bounced. “Sounds fun!”  


“Real fun,” Matt echoed grimly, probably recalling all the hits he and Seth had taken the last game, then all the hits they had given in return. This time around he was paired with Cheng to defend the back during the second half after Nicky and Aaron in the first, if not only because Aaron had zero tolerance for the freshman’s overzealous play style.  


“According to their history, the Jackals seem to be fond of unscrupulous checking,” Gansey addressed, scanning his fat little journal of Exy-related notes. “Henry, if it comes down to it, you’ll have to stand your ground.”

The boy was almost as bad as Kevin. _Almost_ because he at least had his friends to ground him from excessive nighttime excursions at court. _Almost_ because he did not drink his worries away. _Almost_ because there was no such thing as another Kevin Day, just as there was no other Richard Gansey III.

Dramatically, Cheng drew in a breath and shook Sargent by the shoulders, who only tuned in the moment he touched her. “Blue! Did you hear that? Third actually cares about me!”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, that’s nice,” she said, smiling weakly. At Sargent’s subtly ascended accent—juicy like Virginia peaches and flavorful like a roadside country attraction—Gansey’s eyes rose to rest on her, not calculating, but wistful. David had twenty bucks swirling in someone’s betting pool just for the outcome of that stare.  


“You’ll do fine, Jane,” he said with earnest, earning a few eye rolls and fake gags around the room, including from the girl herself. Czerny leaned close and whispered something imperceptible that made Sargent and Cheng double over in stitches. Laughing along, no reason, simply because they were, Gansey asked, “What is it?”

The look Sargent returned was as innocent as she could provide. “Nothing.”  


Through the exchange Lynch and Parrish wisely minded to their own. The striker duo almost always gave David pause. They didn’t mind anyone outside of their little circle, possibly attributing to the influence of Andrew’s group, and did not speak unless spoken to. But that was only limited to Exy, or in David’s presence. Dan had made a point to list to David every skirmish Lynch began outside of court and every one Parrish ended—the two were of hardened hearts, but somehow together they were made of something softer. David only hoped they’d be milder than Andrew and Neil in terms of black and blue and blood, though the hope was thinning as the months went by.

David glanced at his watch and decided niceties were over. 

“Game time, people.”

 

* * *

 

Breckinridge’s sophisticated offense plan as the designated serving team was to eliminate the dealer in the first half. Logically, dealers were superficially the easiest moving targets to pursue as they hadn’t a partner on court unlike strikers or backliners to support them immediately. Morally, it was a dirty plot.  


Allison got red-carded approximately six minutes into the game. David should have known better—pitting her against the last team Seth had played stirred something usually untouchable within. The Jackals had transformed her grief into a nuclear weapon when they got their players to goad her into a fight, slandering her dead boyfriend’s name over and over until she snapped. None of the Foxes had run to stop her when she began swinging. Despite their setback, David felt no pity for the opposite team’s backliner mourning over a broken collarbone and twisted ankle.  


Sargent was up and shaky before the game began, but the second Allison was carded she turned over a new leaf of quiet determination, seething in her padding. David hadn’t planned on putting her in until the last fifteen minutes or so before halftime, and that was only if they were leaning towards a landslide win. Neither of the teams had even scored yet.  


“Ready?” For a moment he thought about subbing Dan instead, because when David looked down at her she looked too small, enough to be shaken by the slightest wind. The idea ceased when he remembered who this was and what she was capable of. 

Because she was a hopeful creature, Sargent said, “I’ll do fine.”

The next half hour sped by. Neil and Kevin raked in points while Renee, Nicky, and Aaron defended their Home goal with an airy ease they lacked the year before. Sargent was faring well, playing by the book and setting a nice flow for defense. Needless to say, by the remaining minute and forty seconds, they were set with a two-point lead.

Desperation was unbecoming, and they became it anyway. Glossing over the rest of the team, the Jackals had slowly inched their way back to muddy plays and targeted the newbie. They checked her, borderline illegal tackles, and yet Blue Sargent was as resilient as a mountain, not chancing a single yellow card. 

From their seats on the benches, the freshmen grew flighty with every hit she withstood. When the gorilla of a player checked Sargent on her helmet with his racquet and she crumpled to the ground like a raggedy doll, her boys were in outright distress.

David saw it coming in slow motion, but not so slow he could have warned anyone before it happened. The ball had barely left Sargent’s net when the Jackal striker, hidden from her peripheral vision, brought up his shallow racquet in a deciding blow. 

Before her body reached the ground, Neil, who she had sent the ball to, struck at the Away goal and the red light lit up in victory. The players on court were the last to notice the girl on the ground, eyes closed like she was only dreaming. Nicky, the nearest, rushed to help first, and the rest came trickling over as the referees called a time out.

Fourteen seconds before the end of the first half.

“Oh, God,” Cheng cried out, though it was more like a painful whine. “Oh my _God_ , Blue.”  


“Holy shit,” said Adam, craning his neck to see. Ronan was no better and stood on the bench as if the added height would make a difference. “Is Abby—”  


Abby, ahead of them, was already on court, lugging her massive arsenal of medical equipment with startling speed. David saw her and pounced out of his reverie to follow. 

Sargent’s helmet had been removed by Renee and now displayed a bleeding wound on her forehead hidden by her hair, now matted at the bangs combined with sweat. The blood was a shock of red against her stark skin and the sight weighed like lead upon David’s old heart. 

He glanced back at the benches to see Gansey, pale in the face, touching the plexiglass with a shaking hand, as if in doing so he could somehow reach them. 

“Honey,” Abby softly roused, cradling her in her lap. “Can you hear me, Blue?”

David didn’t think she was conscious, but her lashes fluttered open and Sargent, mouth quivering slightly, murmured, “Mom?”

“No, sweetheart, it’s Abby.” As she spoke, the nurse pulled anesthetics and medicine from her supply. She gestured to Nicky and Kevin to stand by in case they needed to carry her off at a moment’s notice. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t... I’m... If I say I’m fine right now will I be channeling Adam or Neil?”

Inappropriately, Nicky stifled a guffaw, though Neil had the gall to look like he didn’t know what that meant.

“You’re fine enough to crack jokes. Do so off the court where Abby can heal you,” David said. He examined her again, still beat up and roughened, but sturdy, a forest. “I asked you if you were ready. Did you lie to me, tough stuff?”

“David,” said Abby warningly. He paid her no heed.

The girl answered, “I didn’t say I was ready. I just said I’d do fine.”

“You lied about that, too,” he said, and if she weren’t bleeding on the forehead that’s where he’d flick her. “ _That_ was more than fine. You did good, kid.”

Instead of any sort of celebratory pride she could have expressed, Sargent winced when the pain was too sharp to ignore. She shut her eyes and said, “I’m tired.”

The referees, all six of them, unanimously gave the Jackal striker a deserved red card. In exchange, the Foxes earned a penalty shot, which Kevin scored without any further ordeal. When the halftime came, the score had David’s team leading 4 to 1.

 

* * *

 

Not even their landslide start could lift the mood during the solemn fifteen minute break, especially considering the darkened auras radiating from the freshmen side of the foyer. The boys were quiet in despondency save for Cheng who was overwhelmed with worry and bouncing his leg up and down, looking jitterier than usual, a feat in itself. 

“It’s not like she’s dead,” said Allison, ever the instigator, which was an undeserved remark, but the freshmen had unearthly talents in selective listening. David had learned to implicitly address them whenever he gave announcements. It wasn’t as if they were deafened, merely pretentious, chin-deep in their own bubbles of teenage angst.

“When’s she gonna wake up? She’s going to wake up, right?” Cheng asked, white in the face, not directing a specific audience. Maybe to whoever could answer to his concerns fastest. “What if she gets amnesia? She wouldn’t forget us, would she?”

It was Parrish that bobbed the hook. “Abby said Blue’s only got a concussion and a broken collarbone. Fixable things. We’ve all had worse before.”

David might have been the only one closest to hear Lynch spit underneath his breath towards Parrish, toying savagely, “And yet not every concussion gets you half-deaf.”

The other boy, deterrent, whispered, “We are not doing this here.”

Parrish was fully deaf in one ear. David and Abby were the only ones Parrish was legally required to inform about his disability, and since it surged no real handicap when he played, not many knew. Sometimes when someone would speak to him, coming from the left, there was no pretentiousness in Parrish’s ignorance; only a remnant of stolen innocence. 

It wasn’t as if it was obvious, either, that the cause was man-made, man-handled, man-originated—another reason for David to want to steal him away from that acid cesspool Parrish called his hometown. 

Apparently, Lynch was more vocal about his wishful stealing.

“Huh? Oh, sure,” said Cheng. He was wilting. For a boy who constantly boasted about caring only for himself, he held so much weight of his own heart in the friendships of others. 

“Gansey has a plan,” Parrish told him. The effect was immediate: Cheng’s previously unhinged jaw clasped shut in expectant silence, Czerny’s face solidified instead of looking like he were reenacting a scene from _The Grudge_ , and Lynch crossed his arms in a show of showmanship. 

Funny how Abby’s consolation and David’s succinct deliveries seemed paltry and worthless compared to those four simple words. 

“That’s what he told me. Right, Gansey?”

The boy being addressed had been longingly staring at Abby’s office where Blue had been sentenced to recover. David liked to think he had them all figured out, that he knew where they all stood. In that moment, he found himself thinking that he was wrong. 

It was true that this was Gansey’s group, revolving around a world in which he was their resurrected savior, but if they each belonged to him, then he belonged to them just as much—maybe even more so. 

Blue Sargent belonged to no one, therefore she was easiest to love and hardest to let go.  


“No matter the circumstance, there is no doubt in my mind we _will_ win this game.” Gansey spoke with such certainty, as if it was illogical to think otherwise. The natural outcome had been predetermined so easily. It was one thing to think it, and another to proclaim aloud. He was presumptuous, petulant, prideful. “It’s a matter of _how_ we win I’d like to manipulate, if that’s alright. I know I’m being presumptuous, maybe even petulant, but I feel that it’s something that must be done.”  


“You forgot prideful,” David remarked, though he was already reeled in. It didn’t matter what the others thought. Only two opinions mattered in the room, barring his own. “Captain, vice: your call.”

The fifth-year Fox captain shrugged and threw up her hands. “Sure. Whatever. Anything to get back at those bastards for hurting our girl.”

It took a while for Neil to make a move, a whole thirty seconds, but even as he spoke, his decision had already been made clear when he refrained from providing any earlier objections. Andrew loomed strangely resigned by his side on the seat, sober and real and something-else for months now.

“It’s your debut. If you believe we can win, then I guess we’ll have to believe it too,” Neil concluded. It was possible he merely wanted to avoid more freshmen discourse, but the decision still stood.

Back in the peak of summer, when the six new freshmen had been introduced as six new problems, Neil hadn’t grasped the mantle of vice captain as easily as he would have liked. No one expected him to, not even David, but as always the boy took it hard and took it personal.

Summer had been long and arduous, Dan’s perfunctory orders and Neil’s hesitant berates marking every out-of-place movement the freshmen made during practice. Under his direct command, the striker freshmen proved most difficult to work with: Parrish because he was begrudgingly bullied into submission for a deserved Palmetto State contract, and Lynch because he was Lynch. It turned out that together, they balanced. Together with Gansey, they flourished.

“There you have it. Court’s yours,” David said.

“Ours,” corrected Gansey. “The court is ours.”

 

* * *

 

The opposing team didn’t account for such an aggressive offense, and neither did their own team. So when Lynch and Parrish doubled up on targets and swept the field for the ball while disregarding each other, when Czerny began hogging a whole quarter of the court to himself, when Henry took check after check without retaliation, when it was only down to Matt and Gansey who had their heads screwed on straight—David nearly called quits.

Gansey’s idea of a four-fifths switch out was meant to introduce a foreign play Breckenridge would be unprepared for, which was successful as a surprise but wouldn’t hold up as a long-term weapon. Especially since stepping onto the field the newbies took the matter into their own hands, disregarding the plan immediately. Gansey blocked a shot and the Palmetto crowd howled their approval, but David knew the ball shouldn’t have gotten that far into their side in the first place. 

If he wasn’t their coach he’d give them slack for their first time on the field together as a team, but, alas, David was already dreaming up all the drills he would allow Dan and Kevin to gift them later on.

His kids on the bench watching the play didn’t sugarcoat their commentary, and David was about to join in the peanut gallery when Abby, coming from inside, bent down to whisper a warning in his ear. The nurse had been with Sargent for most of the half but occasionally came out a few moments to catch the score. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. He had no time to register her words. “I couldn’t stop her.”

At that moment the many speakers hooked up around the courts crackled to life, but it was not an informative play-by-play nor a public service announcement that anyone expected. A majority of the players on field, including some of the referees, paused in their tracks. As if played back from a phone, scratchy music began to play. Or something resembling music.

“SQUASH ONE, SQUASH TWO—”

Over the demon of a song, louder and lovelier, came a familiar lilt, if not a bit ragged, laying out a string of cohesive attacks: 

“Ronan, you frothing farm-boy dipshit! Pick up the pace already! Adam, that thing in your hand is called a raqcuet, and you use it to _take_ the ball, not let it _go_. Don’t worry, Noah, you’re not alone in this, okay? Gansey, I’ll burn your boat shoes if you let even _one_ shot in! Get your head in the game, Henry, and I’m not referencing the musical this time—whoops. Hi, mister security guard! Thought this was the bathroom. I’m concussed, I don’t know what I’m doing—”

The music stopped. David couldn’t discern their reactions because of their helmet visors, but he saw both Gansey and Parrish had placed their gloves over their ears simultaneously by the first note. Lynch, however, had sped quicker along with the beat of the song, flagging his mark with astounding stealth. 

The field was a flurry of confusion when most realized there had just been a point taken in the Foxes’ favor during the distraction.

“I am _officially_ in love with Blue freakin’ Sargent!” Cheng yelled at the top of his lungs, loud enough for the bench to hear from behind the plexiglass. Now properly enthused, he took advantage of the short delay by snatching the ball and checking his target with rampant glee. 

Czerny, who had been staggering the team with his brazen moves, seemed to calm down at the sound of Sargent’s racket and directed the ball to Lynch or Parrish whenever it came into his possession instead of ramming headfirst to try to score himself. 

With a smoother offense, Gansey didn’t have to defend the goal as often and the backliners’ strength had made sure it was as untouchable as the sun. David imagined that Matt was taken off guard by their sudden competence.

“What the hell was _that?_ They’re crazy,” said Dan, shaking her head. “We’ll get carded for that stunt.”

“Insane,” Allison agreed, though she was mirroring the grin on Dan’s face.

They buried the Jackals in a landslide win and did not dig them out.

 

* * *

 

The monsters kidnapped the freshmen to Columbia. The upperclassmen, at least, buckled up some responsibility as they trailed along to help. It was difficult to imagine anyone coercing the freshmen to do anything after such a draining last half, but if it had to be anyone it could have only been done by a single hyped-up Nicky Hemmick. 

David honestly doubted any of the six would take up Columbia’s sins, but despite their adamant independence from their upperclassmen they still agreed to be amiable companions. Gansey’s Camaro, the color of perfection or coincidence, was probably the real victim if Matt’s fawning had anything to do with it.

Their first win of the season and, according to the team, the first of many, left them hopeful. News about the law-breaking, killer rookies spread faster than the black plague and by the time they reached the locker room David had three missed calls and ten texts on his work phone solely about them. If the public had passed off last year’s win to chance, there was no way they could use the same excuse this time around.

His apartment seemed empty in spirit when not an hour ago David had been surrounded by such noise. Abby had come home with him and was preparing a light late dinner in the kitchen, stealthy as a fox. The carpeted floor in his bedroom hid the sound of footfalls and his windows were shut to shield him from hypothermia. 

Minutes later, he found himself in bed with his slacks and shoes still on, turning on the television. He recorded tonight’s post-game interview on the DVR. Remembering Dan’s face when Kevin said he’d only take Gansey made him worry, and once they came back from it with only Gansey in high spirits David readied for a Neil-worthy spectacle. He pressed play.

Kevin took to the big screen like a champ, sweating only slightly and holding his helmet against his chest. His ever eye-striking appeal melded onto screen immediately—one of his most prominent public masks.

On the other hand, the golden freshman everyone had their sights set on slid onto the screen like he was born to be there. His smile was genuine, his eyes tired, but he himself was honest. This Richard Gansey III didn’t make you want to worship him; it made you want to be his friend. From personal observation David knew they were the same thing.

After dodging the same preliminary questions about Neil, Kevin’s prospects, Riko’s death, and about things that had no relation to the game that night, the reporter finally got to the hot topic: David’s freshmen.

She addressed Kevin when she inquired, “That was a wild ride tonight, wasn’t it? This year’s newest batch look to be a handful. Did you or the other upperclassmen have any doubts about your picks?”

“We all had our doubts at first,” he replied, effortlessly professional, “but doubts are natural when dealing with change. From the beginning I knew the recruits would be beneficial additions to the team, otherwise we would not have recruited them in the first place. With Danielle’s help as captain, Neil’s support as our new vice captain, and our hard work as teammates together, the doubts were cleared instantly.” Kevin’s admiration was moderate, though deserved. “They’re a good lot.”

“How exciting!” Pushing her microphone towards Gansey’s way, the reporter continued, “Being praised by one of Exy’s most talented players must feel rewarding, I imagine? Then again, I know a player like you is no stranger to praise. You are the Alexander the Great of your time! We all witnessed how you lead the Aglionby Ravens—no relation to our favorite Raven v. Fox mashup from last season, of course—to victory after victory last year in the national high school Exy championships! 

“Now, because of this, Richard, I’m sure you are aware of the controversy surrounding you this season and the questions at the tip of everyone’s tongue: Was last year’s controversy a magnet to your curiosity? Was it the whim of a man with endless choices? Or perhaps you wished to emulate Kevin Day’s success story? Why Palmetto State? Why did Richard Gansey choose _the Foxes?_ ”

Kevin, his boy, didn’t bat an eye at the Edgar Allen reference, just smiled his magazine smile, but it didn’t take an Andrew Minyard to notice the distain in Kevin’s posture. David hasn’t heard “Kevin Day’s success story” mentioned in months, this being the first without a misplaced mention of Moriyama or, on the rarer side, his “Palmetto coach and biological father _.”_  No wonder the boy dumped himself into the monsters’ car headed for Columbia without complaint. By tomorrow he’ll be right as rain, if hungover.

“Why choose the Foxes?” repeated Gansey, not mimicking, but considerate. Always considerate. He made the question seem important, bigger than them, like the whole world wouldn’t be able to go on unless they knew the answer to _why the Foxes_. The evening rolled back in David’s mind, of its madness and magical qualities. Was there even an answer? Gansey proved there was one: “It’s because I knew it would be interesting.”

The reporter nodded as he spoke, though raised her eyebrows once he ended. “Is that all?”

Gansey’s rumbling chuckle was the sort of laugh that stemmed from a private joke, shared in intimacy. It tumbled its way from the speakers to the quiet of David’s bedroom and made itself at home in his chest. He reached for the remote, hovering a finger over the power button. 

David was prepared for this year to be as difficult as the last. He had to be. What David didn’t prepare for was how easy the kids were going to make it for him to care. He never does, really.

“That’s all there is.”

The screen went black.


End file.
